Nicholas Wapshott

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By the end of the year, American taxpayers will no longer be part owners of General Motors. That is good news all around. Nationalization of a private company rarely makes economic sense. Even for red-blooded socialists, the ownership of the means of production has long been an empty threat, a totemic cul de sac that for years led socialism down the wrong path. Regulation is a far better way to ensure an industry works for the public good.

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Every time Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke opens his mouth, the markets move. But few could have guessed that in an offhand remark he would add legitimacy to the Bitcoin, the virtual currency that competes with the American dollar as a reserve currency and an international trading medium.

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There have been a lot of sighs of relief in Europe lately, where countries like Britain and Spain, long in recession, have finally started to grow. Not by much, nor for long. But such is the political imperative to suggest that all the misery of fiscally tight economic policies was worth the pain that there are tentative claims the worst is now over and, ipso facto, austerity worked.

Author Profile

Nicholas Wapshott is the International Editor of Newsweek. He previously served as New York bureau chief of The Times of London and editor of the Saturday Times of London. He is a regular broadcaster on MSNBC, PBS and FOX News. His new book "The Sphinx: Franklin Roosevelt, the Isolationists, and the Road to World War II" is due out in November. He is also the author of "Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: A Political Marriage" and "Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics."